“My child,” God calls, “expand your vision to the dimensions of universal Love, to the dimensions of my Heart. Love without limits does not end with the human person. My Love upholds the entire universe. It is the essential connection, the vital bond, between all persons and things, and Him who loves them.
“Let yourself be carried away by the immense current of boundless Love. Be transported by this movement, this dynamic and aspiration of nature itself, which waits plaintively to be delivered from the consequences of the Fall.
“It is possible for man to ascend toward me; but do not lose sight of my descent toward mankind and toward all created things. Take a flower in your hand. Take a stone. Contemplate them, not in a scientific perspective, but from the point of view of Love. They represent a recapitulation of the world’s evolution. They are signs of the Love that aspires to reach the heights, as they are of the Love that comes to you from across the ages: the Love that reveals itself to you, that gives itself to you, that increasingly draws near to you.
“Behold the beauty of Love in a blade of grass, in a leaf or a branch, in an odor or a color. Enfold your life into the life of the universe, submitting it to the same divine purpose. Think of the mountains and the sea, of winds and storms, of wild beasts and the smallest animals. They all have their place in my Heart. Grant them a place as well in your prayer. May they orient that prayer toward greater venues than those of some simple piety in which the universe has no place.
“Look for a purpose of Love in every created reality. I have loved every grain of sand, every tree, every animal. Each of them represents both an ascension and a condescension. Unite yourself to them all. Express thanks in the name and in the place of mute nature. And may an adoration as vast as the world be your response to Love without limits.
“Do you admire the sun, the stars, the galaxies? Do you thank me for their creation and their presence in your life? Can you enter into divine Love for everything that exists?
“That may be difficult for you. How can we love snakes, after all? Yet even if you are bitten by a snake, you should attempt to love that snake, even as it bites you. Animals are not culpable. They merely do what their natural organism commands. They, too, were victims of an original Fall. Nevertheless, I never cease to love them all.
“A stone tossed into the water creates concentric circles that continuously expand. This invisible movement affects all the molecules in the universe. It is the same with my boundless Love. My Love is an emotion that spreads out to infinity and essentially unites all that exists.”
~Adapted from the Very Rev. John Breck, Orthodox Church in America (oca.org), October 2006, Article #4, Love Without Limits, by Archimandrite Lev Gillet, “A Monk of the Eastern Church”
